Judge Dismisses Harassment/Catfishing Lawsuit Against Grindr

A federal judge in New York City dismissed a lawsuit against Grindr Thursday, brought on by a man who claimed his ex-boyfriend created a fake profile on the gay hookup app in his identity, sending hundreds of men to his home and work.

Matthew Herrick accused Grindr of malicious harassment after his ex-boyfriend allegedly created fake accounts on the app, "which describe Herrick as being interested in fetishistic sex, bondage, role playing, and rape fantasies and which encourage potential suitors to go to Herrick's home or workplace for sex," U.S. District Judge Valerie Caproni wrote in her case summary, which was obtained by Courthouse News say.

"Allegedly hundreds of interested Grindr users have responded to the false profiles, and many of them have physically sought out Herrick," the summary goes on to say. "This lawsuit is, however, against Grindr, not Herrick's former boyfriend."

"The gist of [Herrick's] 14 claims was that Grindr was defectively designed and manufactured because it has no built-in safety features; that it misled Herrick into believing that it could protect him from impersonating profiles; and that it wrongfully refused to search for and remove the impersonations," Caproni wrote.

The judge, however, concluded, "while the creation of the impersonating profiles may be sufficiently extreme and outrageous, Grindr did not create the profiles."

Herrick, an actor, sued Grindr last year and detailed the alleged harassment, saying, because of the fake profile accounts on Grindr, men were showing up to his home and place of work and harassing him. At the time, Herrick said nearly 700 men attempted to solicit sex from him over a year-and-a-half.

"My entire life has been stolen from me. My privacy has been taken from me. I'm humiliated daily," Herrick told Wired at the time. "It's a living hell."

Apple's iPhones and iPads have gotten free software updates, including battery improvements and a smarter virtual assistant. The new features and capabilities in the update, iOS 9, are primarily refinements rather than anything transformative.